You suggested that trying for leg locks was no more risky than trying for arm bars.

I find that a highly questionable assertion.

From the bottom, leglocks are certainly no more risky than arm bars. Additionally, BJ Penn almost certainly has a lot more practice defending arm locks than leg locks. Therefore: In the case of Aoki v Penn, I think Aoki would be quite justified in going for more leg locks than armlocks.

Am I just smoking the C-rock or does anybody else think Joachim Hanson would put on a way better fight with BJ then Aoki? Hellboy in my opinion would run through 99% of the light weights. His stand up is good, he really never puts on a borning fight and doesnt need aoki fag pants and still runs the rubber guard better then damn near anybody. That is who I want to see in the UFC. I just dont think Shinya would be able to make as smooth a transition. Give Hanson some cage time and a little of that oldschool Pulver or Couture dirty box schooling and he would be fucking up all commers. Yeah, I am infact saying Hanson will took Penn.

Oh and Aoki is a big featherweight, you dudes are trippin. Look at his exposition match with Fedor. He is damn near as tall as him and looking at them standing next to eachother I was really suprised at the broad shoulders and trim yet good sized frame of Aoki.

If you're armbarring from guard, what are your arms, hips and legs doing? How is that going to affect your ability to protect yourself? What about with leglocks?

This is admittedly born in part from the bjj bias but there is something to it as well; particularly if you consider the relatively reckless manner aoki and imanari pursue leg locks.

Armbarring from guard is a situation where you can't really go after leglocks anyway. Your legs and hips are preventing him from hitting you with his other hand, but if you screw up your guard is passed and you're getting elbowed in the face from under side.

Leglocks have the benefit that unless you royally screw up, the worst that will happen to you is that end up in butterfly or half guard. If that's where you started anyway, there's little positional risk.

Am I just smoking the C-rock or does anybody else think Joachim Hanson would put on a way better fight with BJ then Aoki? Hellboy in my opinion would run through 99% of the light weights. His stand up is good, he really never puts on a borning fight and doesnt need aoki fag pants and still runs the rubber guard better then damn near anybody. That is who I want to see in the UFC. I just dont think Shinya would be able to make as smooth a transition. Give Hanson some cage time and a little of that oldschool Pulver or Couture dirty box schooling and he would be fucking up all commers. Yeah, I am infact saying Hanson will took Penn.

He would do better against Penn than Aoki would but only for stylistic reasons. Hansen could probably do ok standing with Penn, and only get destroyed when they hit the ground. Aoki's forced to start standing so he's already at a massive disadvantage from the bell.

That said, I don't see Hansen running through UFC LWs. Obviously he'd crush the lower level guys, but given his lack of takedown defense he'd be an underdog against any of the good LW UFC wrestlers, all of whom seem to have developed decent submission defense. He'd suffers the same kind of stylistic problems Spencer Fisher has; solid ground game, good standup, crap wrestling. The UFC lowballed Hansen when they bought out Pride and pissed him off, so it's doubtful we'll ever be sure about how he'd do there.

Leglocks have the benefit that unless you royally screw up, the worst that will happen to you is that end up in butterfly or half guard. If that's where you started anyway, there's little positional risk.